Sightless in a Savage Land (Season 22, Episode 4)
Premise: A 13-year-old foster child is found hemorrhaging after a forced abortion, and when her foster father is charged, her wounded veteran father shoots him outside court.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 22, Episode 4
- Starring
- Capt. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), Sgt. Odafin “Fin” Tutuola (Ice-T), Det. Amanda Rollins (Kelli Giddish), Det. Katriona “Kat” Tamin (Jamie Gray Hyder), Deputy Chief Christian Garland (Demore Barnes), ADA Dominick “Sonny” Carisi Jr. (Peter Scanavino), Judge D. Serani (Michael Mastro), Defense Attorney Rafael Barba (Raúl Esparza)
- Guest stars
- Brett Parks as Mickey Davis, Bhavesh Patel as Ajay Sharma, Vanessa Carrasco as Nydia Davis, Jennifer Esposito as Phoebe Baker, Brenda Raquel as Lulu Davis
- Director
- Norberto Barba
- Writers
- Story: Brendan Feeney & Denis Hamill & Monet Hurst-Mendoza & Melody Cooper; Written by: Matt Klypka & Denis Hamill & Julie Martin & Warren Leight
Summary
“Sightless in a Savage Land” opens on New Year’s Eve. Fin plans to propose to Sgt. Phoebe Baker over dinner, and Carisi, alone for the holiday, spends the night with Rollins’s daughters. An AMBER Alert cuts both evenings short: Ajay Sharma, an ACS supervisor, says his 13-year-old foster daughter, Nydia Davis, ran off after an argument and was dragged into a white box truck near Gracie Mansion. Phoebe links the truck to Chili Chacon, a pimp who once ran Nydia’s mother, Lulu, but Nydia is not with him. She turns up unconscious and hemorrhaging outside a hospital; doctors find abortion drugs in her system and say she was at least eight weeks pregnant.
Nydia says she wanted the baby, that she loves Ajay, and that he was going to drive her to a hospital. Ajay says she ran away and he invented the kidnapping so police would search. His deleted searches for abortion drugs are recovered, and he is charged with rape. Fin, a fellow Airborne Ranger, befriends Nydia’s father, Mickey Davis, a wounded veteran in a VA rehab program. After Ajay pleads not guilty and is held without bail, Mickey, who smuggled a gun into the courthouse, shoots him three times as he is led to transport, then calmly recites his name and rank.
Fin turns to Barba, now working for the Innocence Project and on voting rights, hoping he can talk Carisi into a deal. Instead Barba takes the case, turns down manslaughter in the second degree and aims for jury nullification. Garland warns him not to lean on his friendships in the squad or excuse vigilante justice, and Carisi resents that his old unit is helping his mentor. At trial Barba presses Fin on how ACS and SVU missed Ajay’s abuse of four other foster girls, found only after his death. Mickey testifies that he did not mean to shoot, but under Carisi’s cross-examination he declares he would do it again.
Spoiler, the ending: The jury convicts Mickey of manslaughter in the second degree, and he gets the minimum, three and a half years. Nydia, now in a group home, is angry at her father for killing Ajay. Fin announces that Phoebe has said yes. Outside, Benson suggests Barba was partly defending himself, given how he left the DA’s office; he says he misses the job and her, and they wish each other a happy new year.
Why it stands out
- Raúl Esparza returns as Rafael Barba, the squad’s former ADA, now on the defense side against Carisi, who calls Barba his mentor.
- Fin proposes to Sgt. Phoebe Baker (Jennifer Esposito), his first partner, who was introduced in the Season 20 episode “Brothel.”